There is a need for very lightweight weather-resistant garments useful for less severe or less demanding wear such as late or early season outdoor sporting events or athletic participation, such as golf, walking, hiking, football, soccer, baseball, or the like for spectator sport attendance.
The limited give or stretch of woven textile materials causes garments utilizing them as a part of a laminate, or as one of the layers, to have limits to comfortable movement. For example, if a wearer bends the arms at the elbows or twists the upper torso in golf swing, a woven textile will hug the body contours to give some degree of pulling discomfort, which may impede free movement. Garments which offer the least resistance to body movements are the most comfortable. Comfort and fit are key attributes from a wearers standpoint and are achieved by reducing the restraint imposed on the body by the garment and by increasing the give or stretch of the fabric.
One of the ways known presently to handle the problem of weather-resistance has been to use woven textile cloth combinations with waterproof membranes of porous hydrophobic plastics which may also form composites with hydrophilic materials such that the combination or composite will not pass liquid water, but will transmit water vapor at a rate to keep the interior of a garment utilizing such a material dry. Exemplary of materials and garments utilizing this method for weather resistance are those fashioned from GORE-TEX.RTM. membrane and GORE-TEX.RTM. laminate prepared according to U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,194,041; 4,443,551; 3,953,566; and 4,187,390. Such materials used in garments render them windproof as well.